


Tourney of Harrenhal

by PrettyDoesome



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Tourney at Harrenhal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 20:38:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3543026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyDoesome/pseuds/PrettyDoesome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lyanna Stark meets Rhaegar Targaryen and faces a choice that will change her life and the fate of the North</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tourney of Harrenhal

Chapter I - Awakening

Harrenhall's godswood welcomed the she-wolf of the North on a soft carpet of dewy moss, under a speckled canopy of century-old branches and hazy morning light. Lyanna Stark did not mind the false spring - she was a winter child and the sting of cold was no enemy of hers.  
Languid morning mists were curling up in an enveloping embrace, summoning her and all life to rest at the feet of the old weirwood tree. Lyanna walked, a silent witness to the day's awakening. A smile lingered at the corners of her mouth, for she knew she would take part in yet another event of importance today.  
Had anyone seen her head this way in the dark of the hour before sunrise, they would have thought she was going to pray for advice of the Old Gods. She might do that, too, but first she meant to walk past the weirwood tree and venture into the southern end of the wood to a fallen stump, hollow and blanketed with moss, which she had assessed to be a satisfactory hide-out. Besides bugs and rats, it now housed her less than shiny armor for the jousting. She would teach the Haigh-, Blount- and Frey-serving bullies what an honorable fight looked like and their masters, too - no doubt they were turning a damn blind eye to their squires’ arrogance.  
Stray shafts of morning sunshine caressed the weirwood and it gleamed stark white under a greyish cloak of mist. Lyanna had to stifle a gasp as a shadow towered behind it. She quickly jumped behind the closest tree, grateful for the thick padding under her feet.  
The silhouette was very tall - it could not be Ned or Bran; besides they were both in their tents of which she had made sure. Robert? Hardly - he did not care for the Old Gods and was probably still too drunk from his conquests last night. Her Robert was such a winner, no matter if it came to swords or wine skins; or brothels, or whores.  
A melodic voice resolved the mystery.  
\- Come out, my lady.  
She almost choked on another gasp. The Dragon Prince. What in the Seven Hells Targaryens believed in, was he doing before a weirwood tree?  
Rhaegar Targaryen stepped out of the shadow and the mists seemed to lift and dissolve in his wake. The growing light of upcoming sunrise glowed on his pale skin, carving out with strokes of highlights and shadows the high cheekbones and deep-set indigo eyes. The silver hair glistened with pale gold, moonlight catching the fire of the rising sun.  
\- I was paying respect to your Old Gods, my lady Lyanna. - he said, as if he had read the unspoken question on her face.  
\- Your grace, forgive my intrusion. I... -  
Lyanna hardly ever struggled for words. Had she come to do what he assumed or were it any other surprise visitor, a lie or a platitude would have come easily. In the event, the emotions of the previous evening washed over her and she could not trust her voice to tell a believable story of praying at dawn. The godswood was silent in its awakening, but Lyanna could hear Rhaegar's sad song that had muted all voices in the hall full of thousands. It could have easily been just him and her, in the godswood then, as it was now.  
\- Do you find peace here, my lady? - he said and looked gravely at the weirwood face, saving her from the struggle to finish her sentence.  
The growing sunlight washed away the last wisps of morning mist and Lyanna looked around, taking in the familiar white tree with its crimson leaves, but also the patches of green, seen in the distance through tree trunks, too sparse and too young to block the outside world. Godswood it was, but little did it remind her of Winterfell and the peace at the brink of the lake, where she and Ned, and sometimes Bran, had sat after a long horse ride, their wills hardening and their childhoods melting away in the cold and quiet.  
\- Sometimes it is not peace that I seek in the godswood, your grace.  
She moved closer, resting her hand on the white bark. It was reassuring, almost warm under her fingers. Rhaegar shifted and she could feel his presence, strangely reassuring as well, and a faint scent of musk and warmth wafting from his body. He was wearing only a shirt under the thick cloak with the three-headed dragon. Tall and wide in the shoulders, he looked strong even without armor, boyhood long gone from the elegantly built frame of the man; but there was grace and humility in his bearing, so she could easily see him as Rhaegar, the poet, rather than as the Dragon Prince, the warrior and future King.  
\- Does this face give you shivers, as it does me, or answers? - he said, glancing again at the face of the tree. - Have its eyes seen lives bloom and fade, kings rise and fall?  
A rustle of leaves made them both look up at the blood-red canopy of leaves. Lyanna could hear their whispers in the godswood in Winterfell, too. Echos of old voices.  
\- The trees have seen all, - she said, - but harbor no hope for their confidence, your grace. They do not give answers, for answers are subjective. Only questions. Where a question can raise a kingdom, an answer only binds two gossiping croons.  
Rhaegar glanced at her, measuring. His mouth twitched with a ghost of a smile but there was no joviality in the indigo eyes, only inquiry, urgent, almost desperate.  
\- Wise words for a maiden of so few years.  
\- I am a winter child and a daughter of the North. Mine is the age of winter cold, of wolves’ howl, and of weirwood trees.  
\- You should be more wrinkly, then, judging by this one. Quite grumpy, is it not? - he gestured toward the face before them and grinned boyishly. The change was so sudden that Lyanna could not help a giggle. It sounded like her as little as the grin looked like the Dragon Prince, but at that moment nothing sounded or looked quite as it was supposed to. She felt his glance again.  
\- Laughing becomes you, my lady.  
Blood rushed to her face and she knew her cheeks would be a dark shade of rose.  
\- Maybe you will make the first weirwood face to smile.  
\- Sadly, I am not selfless or wise enough to come to such an honor by the gods. I would make a poor observer of the rise and fall of kings, I am afraid. - she said.  
Rhaegar became serious again and Lyanna mimicked the change.  
\- You do not like to stand still, I can see that. - he said. - There is restlessness in you, is it not?  
She was standing quite still at the moment, but he was right and Lyanna wondered how he knew. She met his gaze head on, all knowledge and concern of his royal blood and power erased. There was dark ripple of a challenge and a faint twinkle of curiosity in the indigo eyes. And a restlessness beyond measure carved in the stern set of the mouth; scraped in the faint crevice between the brows; thrust upon the straight wide shoulders. You have that, too, she was saying, without uttering a single word, and he heard, not needing any. They stood staring like that for a while, in a silent exchange.  
\- The song you played yesterday evening was exceptional, your grace, - she said, ending the unspoken conversation.  
\- I believe your little brother thought otherwise, - he said.

Benjen with his jokes. She had lost her temper on him and soaked her own gown with splashes of the wine she poured onto his head. Not that it mattered - dresses were not what Lyanna had come to Harrenhall for.

The thought of her purpose here came back with a gut-wrenching realization. The sun was emerging hot and bright behind the ridge of the mountain. Soon it would be impossible for a strange knight to get out of the wood and disappear in the crowds unnoticed.  
Before she could say anything a sound of hurried steps and branches being forced aside and coming back together with an whoosh startled them both. Rhaegar gathered her quickly with an arm at the waist and pulled her abruptly behind the cover of the weirwood tree. She stiffened at the sudden proximity, but her attention drifted to the small wiry figure picking its way through the shrubbery at the far end of the glade. It turned its green-cloaked back on them, walking less-than-cautiously to the south-east, in the direction of her moss-blanketed armory. Lyanna stepped aside, trying to gauge where the already disappearing intruder would head to, but Rhaegar put his arms up, leaning on the white bark and confining her to a tiny space between his towering figure and the tree.  
\- Wait still. - he said under his breath. - It would be unwise, my lady, to be found here at this time, alone with me. Hiding behind trees, no less.  
The command was easy enough to follow, and not because he was a prince - rather despite that. Her instincts to challenge authority and run wild and free were smothered by the simple pleasure of reveling in the warmth of his proximity.  
Besides, she should not worry about the stranger stealing her battered armor. It was hidden well enough and no one would crawl and grub in the mud and slime on the slim chance of finding anything of value in that particular hollow.

As the sound of the green-cloaked man's noisy advance through the wood died away, the Dragon Prince stepped back, measuring her with a sly smile.  
\- Maybe I misunderstood your purpose coming here, - he said, arching eyebrows. - I believe you have not come here so early to pray and I have hampered your... flower picking?  
She snorted before she could stop herself and the unguarded reaction was met equally, with a short laugh.  
Well then, if the prince chose mocking as a way to be tactful, she would reciprocate with tactfulness, to spare the both of them more moments of unnatural intimacy, brought upon by giggles and snorting.  
She straightened up and said with as much graceful composure as she could muster:  
\- I favor better the flowers of the North, your grace. I have not found any to my liking here, much as I searched. She fell into a curtsy, hoping this was a polite way to take her leave. Her plan would turn from hard to impossible if she did not go now.

As if reading her thoughts his features eased back to their usual royal grace and he tilted his head.  
\- It was a pleasure, my lady.  
\- May your lance be strong and your destrier fast today, your grace.  
He nodded and disappeared in the fierce light of dawn.


End file.
